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"Shall Cromwell Mave a Statue?" 



ORATION 



BY 

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 



BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY OF 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, 



Tuesday, June 17, 1902. 



BOSTON 

C H A R L E S E . L A U R I A T CO 
1902. 




C^&l 



.U/\ 



'LX* 



" Whom doth the king delight to honour? that is the question of 
questions concerning the king's own honour. Show me tlie man 
you honour; I know by that symptom, better than by any other, 
what kind of man you yourself are. For you show me there what 
your ideal of manhood is ; what kind of man you long inexpressibly 
to be, and would thank the gods, with your whole soul, for being if 
you could." 

" Who is to have a Statue? means. Whom shall we consecrate 
and set apart as one of our sacred men ? Sacred ; that all men may 
see him, be reminded of him, and, by new example added to old 
perpetual precept, be taught what is real worth in man. Whom do 
you wish us to resemble? Him you set on a high column, that all 
men, looking on it, may be continually apprised of the duty you ex- 
pect from them." — Thomas Carlyle, '•'' Latfer-Day Pamp/i/ets." 
(i8so.) 



*i 



SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE? 



ff 



At about 8 ()\'l()ck of the afternoon of September Srd, 
1658. the day of Wori-ester and of Dunbar, and as a 
great teni})est was wearing itself to rest, Oliver C'roniwell 
died. He died in London, in the palace of Whitehall : 
-that palace of the great banqueting hall, through whose 
central window Charles 1. had walked forth to the scaf- 
fold a little less than ten years before. A few weeks 
later, " with a more than regal solenniity," the body of 
the great Lord Protector was carried to Westminster 
Abbey, and there buried •• amongst Kings." Two years 
then elapsed : and, on the twelfth anniversary of King 
Charles's execution, the remains of the usurper, having 
been disinterred ])y a unanimoias vote of the C^onvention 
Parliament, were hung at Tyburn. The trunk was then 
buried under the gallows, while C^romweirs head was set 
on a pole over the roof of Westminstei- Llall. Nearly 
two centuries of execration ensued, until, in the sixtli 
generation, the earlier verdict was challenged, and the 
question at last asked : — '' Shall Cromwell have a statue ?" 
Cromwell, the traitor, the usurper, the execrable murderer 
of the martyred Charles I At first, and for long, the 
suggestion was looked upon almost as an impiety, and. 
as such, scornfully repelled. Not only did the old loyal 
King-worship of England recoil from the thought, but. 
indignantly appealing to the church, it declared that no 
such distinction could be granted so long as there re- 
mained in the prayer-book a form of supi)lication for 
•• King Charles, the Martyr." and of •• praise and thaid<s- 
giving for tiie wonderful deliverance of these kingdoms 
from the great i-ebellion, and all the other miseries and 
oppressions conseijuent thereon, under which they had so 
long groaned." None the less, the demand was insistent : 
and at last, V»ut <mly after two full centuries had elapsed 



.4 

and. a third was well advanced, was the verdict of 1661 
reversed. Today the bronze effigy of Oliver Cromwell, - — 
massive in size, rugged in feature, characteristic in atti- 
tude, — stands defiantly in the yard of that Westminster 
Hall, from a pole on the top of which, twelve scoi-e 
years ago, the flesh crumbled from his skull. 

In this dramatic reversal of an accepted verdict, — this 
complete revision of opinions once deemed settled and 
immutable, — there is, I submit, a lesson, — an academic 
lesson. The present occasion is essentially educational. 
The Phi Beta Kappa oration, as it is called, is the last, 
the crowning utterance of the college year, and very 
})roperly is expected to deal with some fitting theme in a 
kindred spirit. I propose to do so today ; but in a fash- 
ion somewhat exceptional. The phases of moral and in- 
tellectual growth through which the English race has 
])assed on the subject of Cromwell's statue afford, I sub- 
mit, to the reflecting man an educational study of excep- 
tional interest. In the first place, it was a growth of two 
centuries ; in the second place it marks the passage of a 
nation from an existence under the traditions of feudalism 
to one under the principles of self-government ; finally it 
illustrates the gradual development of that broad spirit 
<»t' tolerance which, coming with time and study, measures 
the men and events of the past independently of the 
])rejudices and passions which obscure and distort the 
iuunediate vision. 

We, too, as well as the English, have had our " Great 
Rebellion." It came to a dramatic close thirty-seven 
years since ; as theirs came to a close not less dramatic 
some seven times thirty-seven years since. We, also, as 
they in their time, formed our contemporaneous judg- 
ments and recorded our verdicts, assumed to be irrever- 
sible, of the men, the issues and the events of the great 
conflict ; and those verdicts and judgments, in our case 
as in theirs, will unquestionably be revised, modified, and 



in not a few cases wholly reversed. Better knowledge, 
calmer reflection, and a more judicial frame of mind 
come with the ])assage of the years: in time passions 
subside, prejudices disappear, truth asserts itself. In 
Enoiand this ])rocess has been goino- on for over two cen- 
turies and a half, with what result Cromweirs statue 
stands as proof. W(^ live in another age and a different 
environment ; and, as fifty years of Europe out-measure 
in their growi^h a cycle of Cathay, so I hold one year 
of twentieth century America works more progress in 
thought than thirty-seven years of Britain during the in- 
terval between its (irreat Rebellion and ours. We who 
took active part in the Civil War have not yet wholly 
vanished from the stage ; the rear guard of the (Irand 
Army, we linger. To-day is separated from the death 
of Lincoln by the same number of years only whicli 
separated ''the Glorious -Revolution of 1688" from the 
execution of Charles Stuai-t : yet to us is already given 
to look back on the events of whicli we were a part with 
the same persjjective effects with which the Victorian 
Englishman looks back on the men and events of the 
Commonwealth . 

I propose on this occasion to do so ; and reverting to 
my text, — " Shall Cromwell have a Statue " — and read- 
ing that text in the gloss of Carlyle's Latter-] )<ii/ 
Parnphh't utterance. I (]note you Florace's familial- ])ie- 
cept, 

Mutato nomine, de te 
FahuUt narvotiir. 

and ask abruptly, '• Shall Robert E. Lee have a Statue ? 
1 propose also to offer to your consideration some reasons 
why he should, and. assuredly, will have one. if not now. 
then presently. 

Shortly after Lee's death, in October. 1870. leave was 
asked in t)ie Ignited States Senate, by Mr. McCreery, of 



Kentucky, to introduce a Joint Resolution providing for 
the return of the estate and mansion of Arllnj^ton to 
the family of the deceased Confederate (-omniander-in 
chief. In view of the use which liad then already been 
made of Arlington as a military cemetery, this pro])osal, 
involving, as it necessarily did. a removal of the dead, 
naturally led to warm debate. The proposition was one 
not to be considered. If a defect in tl;e title of the 
gov^ernment existed, it must in some way be cured, as, 
subsequently, it was cured. But I call attention to the 
debate because Charles Sumner, then a Senator from 
Massachusetts, participated in it, using the following 
language : — '•' Eloquent Senators have already charac-. 
terized the proposition and the traitor it seeks to com- 
memorate. I am not disposed to speak of General Lee. 
It is enough to say he stands high in the catalog\ie of 
those who have imbrued their hands in their country's 
blood. I hand him over to the avenging pen of History." 
This was when Lee had been just two months dead ; but, 
three-quarters of a century after the Protector's skull 
had been removed from over the roof of Westminster 
Hall. Pope, wrote in similar spirit : 

" See Cronnvell, damiiM to everlasting fame ; " 

and, sixteen vears later, — foui-hfths of a century after 
Cromwell's disentombment at Westminster and reburial 
at Tyburn, — a period from the death of Lee equal to 
that which will have elapsed in 1950, (xray wrote of the 
Stok« Pogis churchyard — 

" iSome mute inglorious INIilton here may rest, 
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's bloo<l." 

And now, a century and a half later, Cromv/eH's statue 
looms defiantly up in front of the Parliament House. 
When, therefore, an appeal is in such cases made to the 
" avenging pen of History," it is well to bear this in- 
stance in mind, while recalling perchance that other line 



of a greater than Pope, or Gray, or Sumner, — 

'^ Tims tlie wliirlig'if^ ot" time briii^^s in his revenges." 

Was then Robert E. Lee a '' traitor " — was he also 
guilty of his "eonntry's blood?" These questions I propose 
now to discuss. I am one of those who. in other days, was 
arrayed in the ranks which (confronted Lee ; one of those 
whom Lee baffled and beat, but who. finally. l)affled and 
beat Lee. As one thus formerly lined up against him, 
these (juestions 1 propose to discuss in the calmer and 
cooler, and altogether more leasonable light which comes 
to most men, when a whole generation of the human race 
lies buried between them and the issues and actors upon 
which we undertake to pass. 

Was Robert E. Lee a traitor? Technically. I think 
lie was indis})utably a traitor to the United States : for a 
traitor, as I understand it technically, is one guilty of 
the crime of treason ; or. as the Century Dictionary puts 
it, violating his allegiance to the chief authority of the 
State : while treason against the United States is specifi- 
cally defined in the Constitution as '^ levying war " against 
it. or "giving their enemies aid and comfort." That 
Robert E. Lee did levy war against the L^nited States 
can. I suppose, no more be denied than that he gave 
" aid and comfort " to its enemies. This technically ; but, 
in history, there is treason and treason, as there are 
traitors and traitors. And. furthermore, if Robert E, 
Lee was a traitor, so also, and indisputably were George 
Washing ton. Oliver Cromwell, John Hampden. and 
William of Orange. The list might be extended indef- 
initely ; but these will suffice. There can be no question 
that every one of those named violated his allegiance, 
and gave aid and comfort to the enemies of his sover- 
eign. Washington furnishes a precedent at every point. 
A Virginian like Lee. he was also a British subject ; he 
had fought under tlie British flag, as Lee had fought under 



8. 

that of the United States ; when, in 1776, Virginia 
seceded from the British Empire, he " went with his 
State," just as Lee went with it eighty-five years later ; 
subsequently Washington commantled armies in the field 
designated by those opposed to them as *' rebels," and 
whose descendants now glorify them as "• the rebels of 
'76," much as Lee later commanded, and at last surren- 
dered, much larger armies, also designated " rebels " by 
those they confronted. Except in their outcome, the 
cases were, therefore, precisely alike ; and logic is logic. 
It consequently appears to follow, that, if Lee was a 
traitor, Washington was also. It is unnecessary to in- 
stitute similar comparisons with Cromwell, Hampden and 
William of Orange. No defence can in their cases be 
made. Technically, one and all, they undeniably were 
traitors. 

But there are, as I have said, traitors and traitors, — 
CataHnes, Arnolds and Gorgeis, as well as Cromwells, 
Hampdens and Washing-tons. To reach any satisfactory 
conclusion concerning a candidate for '•• everlasting fame," 
— whether to praise him or to damn him, — enroll hinx 
as saviour, as martyr, or as criminal, — it is, therefore, 
necessary still fui'ther to discriminate. The cause, the 
motive, the conduct must be passed in review. Did tur- 
pitude anywhere attach to the original taking of sides, 
or to subsequent act ? Was the man a self-seeker ? 
Did low or sordid motives impel him ? Did he seek to 
aggrandize himself at his country's cost ? Did he strike 
with a parricidal hand ? 

These are grave questions : and, in the ease of Lee, 
their consideration brings us at the threshold face to face 
with issues which have perplexed and divided the country 
since the day the United States became a country. They 
perplex and divide historians now. Legally, technically, 
— the moral and humanitarian aspects of the issue whoUy 
apart, — which side had the )iest of the argument as to 



9 

the rights and the wrongs of the ease in the great de- 
bate which led up to the Civil War? Before entering, 
however, on this well-worn, — I might say, this threadbare 
— theme, as I find myself compelled in briefest way to 
do, there is one preliminary very essential to be gone 
through with. A species of moral })urgation. l^earing 
in mind Dr. .Johnson's advice to Boswell, on a certain 
memorable occasion, we should at least try to clear our 
minds of cant. Many years ago, but only shortly before 
his death, Richard Cobden said in one of his truth-telling 
deliverances to his Rochdale constituents, — "I really be- 
lieve I might be Prime Minster. If I would get up 
and say you are the greatest, the wisest, the best, the 
happiest ])eople in the woi'ld, and keep on repeating that, 
1 don't doubt but what 1 might be Prime Minister. I 
have seen Prime Ministers made in my experience pre- 
cisely by that process." The same great apostle of 
homely sense, on another occasion liluntly remarked in 
a similar spirit to the House of Connnons, — " We gener- 
ally sympathise with everybody's rebels but our own." 
In both these res])ects I submit we Americans are true 
descendants from the Anglo-Saxon stock : and nowhere 
is this more unpleasantly apparent than in any discussion 
which may arise of the motives which actuated those of 
our countrymen who did not at the time see the issues 
involved in our Civil War as we saw them. Like those 
wdiom Cobden addressed, we like to glorify our anc-estors 
and ourselves and we do not particularly care to give 
ear to what we are pleased to term unpatriotic, and, at 
times, even treasonable, talk. In other words, and in 
plain, unpalatable, English, our minds are satui-ated with 
(^ant. Only in the case of others do we see things as 
they really are. Then, ceasing to be antagonistic, we are 
nothing unless critical. So, when it comes to rebellions, 
we. like Cobden's Englishmen, are wont almost invaria- 
bly to sympathize with everybody's rebels but our own. 



10 

Our souls go forth at once to Celt, Pole, Hungarian, 
Boer and Hindoo : ])ut, when we are concerned, language 
quite fails us in which adequately to depict the moral 
turpitude which must actuate Confederate or Filipino 
who rises in resistance against what we are pleased really 
to consider, as well as call, the best and most benefi- 
cent government the world has yet been permitted to see, 
— Our Government. This, I submit, is cant, — pure cant ; 
and at the threshold of discussion we hspd best fi-ee our 
minds of it, wholly, if we can : if not wholly, then in so 
far as we can. Philip the Second of Spain, when he 
directed his c^rusade in the name of God, Church and 
(xovernment, against William of Orange, indulged in it 
in quite as good faith as we : and as for Charles " the 
Martyr" and the '* sainted " Laud, for two centuries after 
Cromwell's head was stuck on a pole, all England every 
Sunday lamented in sackcloth and ashes the wrongs in- 
flicted by sacrilegious hands on those most assuredly well- 
meaning rulers and men. All depends on the point of 
view : and, during our own Civil War, while we unceas- 
ingly denounced the wilful wickedness of those who bore 
parricidal arms against the one immaculate authority yet 
given the eye of man to look upon, tlie leading news- 
paper of the world was referring to us in perfect good 
faith " as an insensate and degenerate people." An 
English member of Parliament, speaking at the same 
time in eipiaUy good faith, declared that, throughout 
the length and breadth of Great Britain, public senti- 
ment was almost unanimously on the side of " the South- 
erners," — as ours was on the side of the Boers, — be- 
cause our " lebels " were "■ fightino- against one of the most 
grinding, one of the most galling, one of the most irri- 
tating attem})ts to establish tyi'annical government that 
ever disgraced the history of the worhl." 

Upon the correctness or otherwise of these judgments 
1 do not care to pass. They certainly cannot be recon- 



11 

(riled. Tlie sIngU' point I make is that they were, when 
maik'. the expre.ssion of views honestly and sincerely en- 
tertained. We sympathize with Oreat l^ritaiu's rebels; 
Great Hi-itain syni})athized with our rebels. Our rebels 
in 1862. as theirs in 1900. sincerely believed they were 
ivsistiny an iniquitous attempt to deprive them of their 
rights, and to establish over them a ^- orinding," a 
''galliui; ■■ and an *• irritatiu-; " "tyrannical government." 
We in 1861. as (ireat Britain in 1898, and Charles "the 
Martyr" and Philip of Spain some centuries earlier, fully 
lielicved that we were engaged in (rod's wt)rk while we 
trod under foot the -rebel" and the "traitor." Presently, 
as distance lends a more correct perspective, and things are 
seen in tlieir ti-ue ])roi)ortions. we will get perhaps to 
realize that our case furnishes no exception to the general 
rule : and that we. too, like the English " generally sym- 
pathize with everybody's rebels but our own." Justice 
inav then be done. 

Having entered this necessary, if somewhat liopeless 
caveat, let us address ourselves to the (ptestion — legally, 
teclmically. — again let me say not morally and not 
to the rights and the wrongs of the case in the great 
debate which led up to the Civil War/ The answer 
necessarily turns on the abstract right of what we term 
a Sovereign State to secede from the Union at such time 
and for such cause as may seem to that wState proper and 
sufHcient. The issue is settled now : irrevocably and for 
all time decided : it was not settled forty years ago, and 
the settlement since made has ])een the result not of 
reason. ])ased on historical evidence. l)ut of events and 
of force. To pass a fair judgment on the line of con- 
duct pui-sued by Lee in 1861, it is necessary to go back 
in tiiought and imagination, and see things, not as they 
are. but as they W(Me. If we do so, and accept the judg- 
ment of some of the more modern students and investi- 
gators of liistoiy. — either wholly unprejudiced or with 



12 

a distinct Union bias, — it would seem as if the weight 
of argument falls into what I will term the Confederate 
scale. For instance. Professor Goldwin Smith. — an 
Englishman, a life-long student of history, a friend and 
advocate of the Union during the Civil War, the author 
of one of the most compact and readable narratives of 
our national hfe, — Prof. Smith has recently said — " Few 
who have looked into the history can doubt that the 
Union originally was. and was generally taken by the 
parties to it to be, a compact, dissoluble perhaps most 
of them would have said, at pleasure, dissoluble certainly 
on breach of the articles of Union." * To a like effect, 
but in terms even stronger, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, now 
a Senator from Massachusetts, has said, not in a ])olitical 
utterance but in a work of liistorical character, — "• When 
the Constitution was adopted by tlie votes of States at 
Philadelphia, and accepted l>y tlie votes of States in 
popular conventions, it is safe to say that there was not 
a man in the country from Washington and Hamilton 
on the one side, to George Clinton and George Mason 
on the othei-, who regarded the new system as anything 
but an experiment entered upon by the States and fi'om 
which eacli and every State had the right peaceably to 
withdraw, a rig-ht which was very likely to be exercised."! 

Here are two explicit statements of the legal and 
technical side of the argument made by authority to 
which no exception can be taken, at least by those of 
the Union side. On them, and on them alone, the case 
for the abstract light of secession might be rested, and 
we could go on to the next stage of the discussion. 

I am unwilling, however, so to do. The issue involved 

is still one of interest, and I am not disposed to leave it 

on the mere dictum of two authorities, however eminent. 

In the first place I do not altogether concur in their 

statement ; in the next place, this discussion is a mere 

* Atlantir Monthly Mac/azine (March, 1902) vol. 89 p. 305. 
j Webster, American Statesman Series, p. 172. 



13 

threshing of straw unless we get at the true inwardness 
of the situation. When it conies to subjects — political 
or moral — in which human beings are involved, meta- 
physics are scarcely less to be avoided than cant ; alleged 
historical facts ai'e apt to prove <leceptive ; and I confess 
to grave suspicions of h)gic. Old time theology, for 
instance, with its pitiless reasoning, led the world into 
very strange places and much bad company. In reaching 
a conclusion, therefore, in which a verdict is entered on 
the motives and actions of men, acting either individually 
or in masses, the moral and sentimental must be quite 
as much taken into account as the legal, the logical and 
the material. This, in the present case, I propose presently 
to do ; but, as I have said, on the facts even I am un- 
able wholly to concur with Professor Smith and Mr. Lodge. 
Mr. Lodge, for instance, cites Washington. But it so 
chances Washington put himself on record upon the 
point at issue, and his testimony is directly at variance 
with the views attributed to him by Mr. AYebster's bio- 
graphei'. What are known in history as the Kentucky 
lesolutions, drawn up by Thomas Jefferson, then Vice- 
President, were passed by the Legislature of the State 
whose name they bear in November, 1798. In those 
resolutions the view of the framers of the Constitution as 
to ihe original scope of that instrument accepted by 
Prof. Smith and Mr. Lodge was first set forth. The 
principles acted upon by South Carolina on the 20 th of 
December, 18G0, were enunciated by Kentucky Novem- 
ber 10, 1798. The dragon's teeth were then sown. 
Washington was at that time living in retirement at Mt. 
Yernon. When, a few weeks later, the character of those 
resolutions became known to him, he was deeply concerned, 
and wrote to Lafayette, — " The Constitution, according 
to their interpretation of it, would be a mere cipher ; " 
and again, a few days later, he expressed himself still 
more strongly in a letter to Patrick Henry, — " Measures 



14 

are systeiuatically and pertinaciously pursiu^d wliieli must 
eventually dissolve the Union, or produce coercion. "' * 
Coercion ^Vashington thus looked to as the remedy to 
which recourse could properly be had in case of any 
overt attempt at secession. But, so far as the f ramcrs 
of the Constitution as a whole were concerned, it seems 
to me clear that, acting as wise men of conflicting views 
naturally would act, they did not care to incur the danger 
of a shipwreck of their entire scheme by undertaking to 
settle, distinctly and in advance, abstract questions, tlic 
discussion of which was fraught with danger. In so far 
as they could, they, with great practical shrewdness, left 
those questions to be settled, should they ever ])rcsent 
themselves in concrete form, under the conditions whicli 
might, then exist. I^ie trutli seems to be that the mass 
of those composing the Convention of 1787, working 
under the guidance of a few very able and ext'cedingly 
practical men, of constructive mind, builded a great deal 
better than they knew. The delegates nu4 to harmonize 
trade differences : they ended by perfecting a scheme of 
political union that had broad consequences of whicli they 
little dreamed. If they had dreamed of them, the fabric 
would never have been completed. That Madison. Mar- 
shall and Jay were equally blind to consequences does 
not follow. They probably designed a nation. If they 
di<l, however, they were too wise to take the public into 
tlieir confidence : and, today, no impartial student of our 
constitutional history can doubt for a moment that eacli 
State ratified the form of government submitted in the 
firm belief that at any time it (.-ould withdraw therefrom. 
Probably, however, the more far-seeing. — and. in the long 
run, they alone count, — shared with Washington in the 
belief that this withdrawal would not l>e unaccompanied 

* Washington's Works, vol. xi, pp. 378, 380. 



15 

by practical diffiinilty.* And, attei- all is said and done, 
tho legality of secession is somewhat of a metaphysical 
abstraction so long' as the right of revolution is inalien- 
able. As matter of fact it was to might and revolution 
the Soiith appealed in 1861 ; and it was to coercion the 
government of the Union had recourse. So with his su- 
preme good sense and that political insight at once in- 
stinctive and unerring, in respect to which he stands 
almost alone, Washington foresaw this alternative in 1798. 
He looked u])on the doctrine of secession as a heresy : 
but. none the less, it was a heresy then preached, and to 
which many, not in \ irginia only hut in New England 
also, pinned their political faith. Even the Devil is pi-o- 
verbially entitled to his due. 

So far, however, as the abstract cpiestion is of conse- 
quence, as the utterances of Prof. Smith and Mr. Lod^-c 
conclusively show, the Secessionists of 1861 stand in his- 
tory's court by no means without a case. In that ease. 
moreover, they implicitly believed. From generation to 
generation they had grown up indoctrinated with the gospel. 
or heresy, of State Sovereignty, and it was as much part 
of their moral and intellectiud being as was clanship of the 
Scotch highlanders. In so far they were right, as Governor 
John A. Andrew said of John Brown. Meanwhile, prac- 
tically, as a commoii-seused man, leading an every day ex- 
istence in a world of actualities, John Brown was not 
right : he was, on the contrary, altogether wrong, and 
richly merited the fate meted out to him. It was the 
same with the Secessionists. That, in 1861, they could reallv 
have had faith in the practicability, — the real working 
efficiency, — of that peaceable secession which they pro- 
fessed to ask for, and of which they never wearied of 
talking, I cannot believe. I find in the record no real 
evi<lence thereof, 

* Doiin I'iatt, Oeurye II . 'I'fioina.s, p. bS. 



16 

Of the high-type Southron, as we sometimes designate 
him, I would speak in terms of sincere respect. I know 
him chiefly by hearsay, ha\dng come in personal contact 
only with individual representatives of the class ; but such 
means of observation as 1 have had confirm what I 
recently heard said by a friend of mine, once Governor 
of South Carolina : and so far as I know, the only man 
who ever gave the impossible plan of reconstruction at- 
tempted after our Civil "War a firm, fair and intelligent 
trial. He at least put forth an able and honest effort to 
make effective a policy which never should have been de- 
vised. Speaking from " much and varied experience," I 
recently heard Daniel H. Chamberlain say of the '' typ- 
ical southern Gentleman " that he considered him •' a dis- 
tinct and really noble growth of our American soil. For, 
if fortitude under good and under evil fortune, if endur- 
ance without complaint of what comes in the tide of 
human affairs, if a grim clinging to ideals once charming, 
if vigor and resiliency of character and spirit under de- 
feat and poverty and distress, if a steady love of learning 
and letters when lil)raries were lost in flames and the 
wreckage of war, if self-restraint when the long delayed 
relief at last came, — if, 1 say, all these qualities are 
})arts of real heroism, if these qualities can vivify and 
ennoble a man or a i)eople, then our own South may lay 
claim to an honored place among the differing types of 
our great common race." Such is the matured judgment 
of the Massachusetts Governor of South Carolina during 
the Congressional reconstruction period ; and, listening to it, 
I asked myself if it was descriptive of a Southern fellow- 
countryman, or a Jacobite Scotch chieftian anterior to 
-the '45." 

The Southern statesmen of the old slavery days, — the 
antediluvian i)eriod which preceded our mid-century cat- 
aclysm, — were the outcome and representatives of what has 
thus been described. As such they presented a curious ad- 



17 

, mixtiuo of (|ualities. Masterful in temjHn-, dear of purpose, 
with a finu »,aasp on principle, a high sense of honor 
antl a moral per('e})tion developed on its peculiar lines, a» 
in the case of Calhoun, to a (luality of distinct hardness, 
they were yet essentially aV)stractionists. Political metaphy- 
sicians, they were not prai'tical men. They did not see 
things as they really were. They thus, while discussing 
their •• forty -bale theories " and the '' })atriarchal institution " 
in connection with States rights and nnlliiication, failed to 
I'calize that on the two essential features of their policy, — 
slavery and secession, — they were contending with the stars 
in their courses. The whole world was moving irresistibly 
in the direction of nationality and an ever increased recog- 
nition of the rights of man : while they, on both of these 
vital issues, were proclaiming a crusade of reaction. 

Moreover, what availed the views or intentions of the 
framers of the Constitution? What mattered it in 18<>0 
whether they, in 1787. contemplated a Nation or only a 
uioi'e com})act federation of Sovereign States ? Kealitit^s 
have an unpleasant way of asserting their existence. How- 
ever it may have been in 1788, in 1860 a Nation had 
grown into existence. Its i)eaceful dismemberment was im- 
possible. The complex system of tissues and ligaments, 
the growth of seventy years, could not be gently taken 
apart, without woiuid or hurt : the separation, if sepa- 
lation there was to l)e, involved a tearing asunder, su})ple- 
nienting a liberal use of the knife. Their professions to 
the contrary notwithstanding, this the Southern leaders failed 
not to realize. In point of fact, therefore, believing fully 
in the abstract legality of secession, and the justice and 
sufficiency of the grounds on which they acted, theii- appeal 
was to the inalienable right of revolution; and to that nn'ght 
l)V which alone the right could be upheld. Let us )>ut 
casuistry. meta})hysics and sentiment aside, and come to 
actualities. The secessionist recourse in -ISGl was to the 
sword: and to the sword it was meant to have recourse. 



18 

I have thus far spoken only of the South as a whole. 
Much has been said and written on the subject of an al- 
leged conspiracy in those days of Southern men and leaders 
against the Union : of the designs and ultimate objects of 
the alleged conspirators : of acts of treachery on their part, 
and the part of their accomplices, towards the government, 
of which they were the sworn officials. Into this phase 
of the subject I do not propose to enter. , That the lead- 
ers in Secession were men with large views, and that 
they had matured a comprehensive policy as the ultimate 
outcome of their movement, I entertain no doubt. They 
looked unquestionably to an easy military success, and the 
complete establishment of their Confederacy ; more remotely, 
there can be no question they contemplated a policy of 
extension, and the estaVdishment along the shores of the 
Gulf of Mexico and in the Antilles of a great semi-tropical, 
slave-labor republic ; finally, all my investigations have 
tended to satisfy, me that they confidently anticipated an 
early disintegration of the Union, and the accession of 
the bulk of the Northern States to the Confederacy, 
New England only being sternly excluded therefrom — 
'' sloughed off," as they expressed it. The capital of the 
new Confederacy was to be Washington ; African servitude, 
luider reasonable limitations, was to be recognized through- 
out its limits ; agriculture was to be its ruling interest, 
with a tariff and foreign policy in strict accord there \\dth. 
*' Secession is not intended to break up the present gov- 
ernment, but to perpetuate it. We go out of the Union, 
not to destroy it, but for the purpose of getting further 
guarantees and security,'" — this was said in January, 1861; 
and this in 1900 — "-And so we believe that, with the 
success of the South, the ' Union of the Fathers,' which 
the South was the principal factor in forming, and to 
which she was far more attached than the North, \\'Ould 
have been restored and re-established : that in this Union, 
the South would have been again the dominant people. 



19 

the controlling power." Conceding the necessary premises 
of fact and law, — a somewhat considerable concession, but, 
perhaps, conceivable, — conceding these, I see in this po- 
sition, then or now, nothing illogical, nothing provocative 
of severe criticism, certainly nothing treasonable. Acting 
on sufficient grounds, of which those thus acting were tlie 
sole judge, proceeding in a way indisputably legal and reg- 
ular, it was proposed to reconstruct the Union in the light 
of experience, and on a new, and, as they considered, an 
improved basis, without New England. This cannot prop- 
erly be termed a conspiracy ; it was a legitimate policy 
based on certain assumed data legal, moral and economi- 
cal. But it was in reality never for a moment believed 
that this programme could be peaceably and quietly carried 
into effect ; and the assent of New England to the ar- 
rangement was neither asked for, assumed nor expected. 
New England was distinctly relegated to an outer void, 

— at once cold, dark, inhospitable. 

As to participation of those who sympathized in these 
views and this policy in the councils of the government, 
so furthering schemes for its overthrow while sworn to 
its support, I hold it unnecessary to speak. Such were 
traitors. As such, had they met their deserts, they should 
at the proper time and on due process of law, have been 
arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced and hanged. That in 

7 7 7 ^ 

certain well-remembered instances this course was not pur- 
sued, is, to my mind, even yet much to be deplored. In 
such cases clemency is only another form of cant. 

Having now discussed what have seemed to me the 
necessary preliminaries, I come to the particular cases of 
Virginia and Robert E. Lee. The two are closely interwoven, 

— for Virginia was always Virginia, and the Lees were, 
first, over and above all, Virginians. It was the Duke 
'f Wellington who, on a certain memorable occasion, in- 
dignantly remarked in his delightful French- English — 
" Mais avant tout je suis gentilhonune Anglais.'' So might 
'lave said the Lees of Viru'inia of themselves. 



20 



As respects Virginia, moreover. 1 am fain to say there 
was in the attitude of the State towards the Confederacy, 
and, indeed, in its bearing throughout the Civil War. 
something which appealed strongly, — something unselfish 
and chivalric, — worthy of Virginia's highest record. His- 
tory will, I think, do justice to it, Virginia, it must be 
remembered, while a Slave State was not a Cotton State. 
This was a distinction implying a differencje. In Virginia 
the institution of slavery existed, and because of it she was 
in close sympathy with her sister Slave States : but, while 
in the (^otton States slavery had gradually assumed a purely 
material form, in Virginia it still retained much of its 
patriarchal character. The slave there was not a mere 
transferable chattel ; practically, and to a large extent, he 
was attached to the house and the soil. This fact had 
a direct l>earing on the moral issue : for slavery was one 
thing in Virginia, (juite another in Louisiana. The Vii- 
ginian pride was moreover proverbial. Indeed, I doubt if 
local feeling and patriotism and devotion to the State 
ever anywhere attained a higher development than in the 
community which dwelt in the region watered by the 
Potomac and the James, of which Riclmiond was the 
political centre. We of the North, especially we of New 
England, were Yankees : but a Virgininan was that, and 
nothing else. I have heard of a New Engiander, of a 
Green Mountain boy, of a Rhode Islander, of a '• Nutmeg,"' 
of a '• Blue-nose "* even, l)ut never of a Massachusettensian. 
The word somehow does not lend itself to the mouth, 
any more than the thought to the mind. 

But Virginia was strongly attached by sentiment as well 
as interest to the Union. The Inrth-place of Washington, 
the mother of States, as well as of Presidents, •* The Old 
Dominion." as she was i-alled, and fondly loved to call 
herself, had never been affected by the nullification here- 
sies of South Carolina ; and the long line of her eminent 
public men. though, in 1860. sliowing marked signs of a 



21 



deterioratinj;' standard, still retained a prominence in the 
national eouncils. If fJohn 15. Floyd was Seci'etary of the 
Interior. Winfield Seott was at the head of the Army. 
Torn by conflicting feelings, Virginia still held to the Na- 
tion, nnwilling to sever her connection with it hecanse of 
the lawfnl election of an anti-slavery President, even by a 
distinctly sectional vote. For a time she even stayed the 
fast flooding tide of secession. l)ringing about a brief l)ut 
important reaction. Those of us old enough to remember 
the drear and anxious Winter which followed the election 
and precedeil the inauguration of Lincoln, recall vividly the 
rav of bright hope which, in the midst of its deepest gloom, 
then came from Virginia. It was in early February. Up 
to that time the record was unbroken. Beginning with 
South Carolina on the 20th of Deceml)er, State after State, 
meeting in convention, had with signifi(!ant unanimity passed 
ordinances of secession. Each successive ordinance was felt 
to be the equivalent to a renewed declaration of war. The 
outlook was dark indeed ; and. amid the fast gathering 
gloom, all eyes, all thoughts, turned to Virginia. She 
represented what were known as the Border States, her 
at'tion it was felt would largely influence, and might control, 
theirs. John Letcher was then Governor of Virginia, — a 
States Rights Democrat, of course ; but a Union man. By 
him the legislature of the State was in December called 
together in special session, and that legislature passed 
what was known as a convention bill. Practically Vir- 
ginia was to vote on the question at issue. Events moved 
rapidly. South Carolina had seceded on tlie 20th of De- 
cember : Mississippi on the 8th of January: Alabama and 
Florida only three days later on the 11th; Georgia 
followed on the 19th ; Louisiana on the 2Gth, with Texas 
on the 1st of February. The procession seemed unending ; 
the record unbioken. Not without cause might the now 
thoroughly frighten«'(l friends of the Union have exclaimed 
with Macbeth — 



22 

*' What ! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom ? 
Another yet? A seventh?" 

If at that juncture the Old Dommion by a decisive vote 
had followed in the steps of the Cotton States it im- 
plied censequences which no man could fathom. It involved 
the possession of the national capitol, and the continuance 
of the Government. Maryland would inevitably follow the 
Virginian lead ; the recently elected President had not yet 
been inaugurated ; taken wholly by surprise, the North was 
divided in sentiment : the loyal spirit of the country was 
not aroused. It was thus an even question whether, on 
the 4th of March, the whole machinery of the de facto 
government would not be in the hands of the revolutionists. 
All depended on Virginia. This is now forgotten ; none 
the less, it is history. 

The Virginia election was held on the 4th of February, 
the news of the secession of Texas — seventh in the line 
— having been received on the 2nd. Evidently, the action 
of Texas was carefidly timed for effect. Though over 
forty years ago, I well remember that day, — gi'ay, over- 
cast, wintry, — which succeeded the Virginia election. 
Then living in Boston, a young man of twenty-five, 1 
shared, — as who- did not ? — in the common deep depression 
and intense anxiety. It was as if a verdict was to be 
that day announced in a case invoKang fortune, honor, 
life even. Too harassed for work, I remember leaving my 
office in the afternoon to seek relief in physical activity, 
for the ponds in the vicinity of Boston were ice-covered 
and daily' thronged with skaters. I was soon among the 
number, gloomily seeking unfrequented spots. Suddenly I 
became aware of an unusual movement in the throng 
nearest the shoi'e, whei-e those fresh from the city arrived. 
The skaters seemed crowding to a common point : and a 
moment later they scattered again, with cheers and ges- 
tures of relief. An arrival fresh from Boston had brought 
the first bulletin of yesterday's election. Virginia, speaking 



23 

against secession, had emitted no uncei'tain sound. It was 
as if a weiglit had been taken off the mind of everyone. 
The tide seemed turned at last. F'or myself, I remember 
my feelings were too deep to find expression in words or 
sound. Something stuek in my throat. I wanted to l>e 
by myself. 

Nor did we over-estimate the importance of the event. 
If it did not in the end mean reaction, it did mean time 
gained : and time then, as the result showed, was vital. 
As AVilliam H. Seward, representing the President-elect in 
Washington, wrote during those days : — '"• The people of 
the District are looking anxiously for the result of the 
Virginia election. They fear if Virginia resolves on sect's- 
sion, Maryland will follow : and then Washington w ill 
be seized. *** The election tomorrow ])robably determines 
whether all the Slave States will take the attitude of 
disunion. Everybody around nic thinks that that will 
make the separation irretrievable, and involve us in fla- 
grant civil war. Practically everybody will despair." A 
day or two later the news canu^ •• like a gleam of sun- 
shine in a storm." The disunion movement was checked, 
perhaps would be checkmated. Well might Seward, with 
a sigh of profound relief, write to his wife : — "-At least. 
the danger of conflict, here or elsewhere, before the 4th of 
March, has been averted. Time has been gained." * Time 
was gained : and the few weeks of precious time thus 
gained thiough the expiring effi^rt of union sentiment in 
Virginia involved the vital fact t>f tlu- peaceful delivery 
four weeks later, of the helm of state into the hands of 
Lincoln. 

Thus, be it always remembered. Virginia did not U\kv 
its plaice in the secession movement bei-ause of the election 
of an anti-slavery president. It did not raise its hand 
against the national government from mere love of any ])c- 
culiar institution, or a wish to jn-otect and to perix-tuatr it. 
*Sewiir(1 (it ]\'<(i<fii7i(itnii. vol. ii.. ]>. .")<I2. 



•24 



It refused to he precipitated into a civil convulsion ; and 
its refusal was of vital moment. The ground of Virginia's 
final action was of wholly another nature, and of a nature 
far more creditable. Virginia, as I have said, made State 
Sovereignty an article, — a cardinal article, — of its political 
creed. So, logically and ponsistently, it took the position 
that, thouah it might be unwise for a State to secede, a 
State which did secede could not, and should not be coerced. 

To us now this position seems worse than illogical ; it 
is impossible. So events proved it. Yet, after all, it is 
based on the great fundamental principle of the consent 
of the governed : and, in the days immediately preceding 
the war, something very like it was accepted as an article 
of correct political faith by men afterwards as strenuous 
in su})port of a Union re-established by force, as Charles 
Sumner, Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Salmon P. 
Chase and Horace Greeley. The difference was that, con- 
fronted by the overwhelming tide of events, Virginia adhered 
to it ; they, in presence of that tide, tacitly abandoned it. 
In my judgment, they were right. But Virginia, though 
mistaken more consistent, judge<l otherwise. As I, have 
said, in shaping a practical outcome of human affairs logic 
is often as irreconcilable with the dictates of worldly wis- 
dom as are metaphysics with connnon sense. So, now. the 
issue shifted. It became a question, not of slavery or of 
the wisdom, or even the expediency, of secession, but of 
the right of the National Government to coerce a Sovereign 
State. This at the time was well understood. The extre- 
mists of the South, coimting u})on it, coiuited with absolute 
confidence ; and openly proclaimed their reliance in debate. 
Florida, as the representatives of that State confessed on 
the floor of Congress, might in itself be of small ac- 
count ; l)ut Florida, panoplied with sovereignty, was henniied 
in and buttressed against assault by })rotecting sister States. 

So, in . his history, J ames F. Rhodes asserts that — 
•* The four men who in the last resort made the decision 



25 

that bej^an the war were ex-Senatoi- Chestnut, Lieutenaiit- 
Col. Chisliohu. Captain Lee, all three South Carolinians, 
and Koger A. I'ryor, a Virginia secessionist, who two days 
before in a sj)eeeh at the Charleston Hotel had said, " I 
will tell your Governor what will put Virginia in the 
Southern (M)nfedera('y in less than an hour Ity Shrewsbury 
clock. Strike a blow I "' * The blow was to be in rej)ly to 
what was accepted as the first overt effort at the national 
coercion of a Sovereign State, — the attempted relief of 
Sumter. That attempt, — unavoidable even if long de- 
ferred, the necessary and logical outcome of a sitiuitiou 
which had become impossible, — that attempt, construed 
into an eifort at coercion, swept Virginia from her Union 
moorings. 

Thus, when the long-deferred hour of fateful de«*ision 
came, the position of Virginia, be it in historical justice 
said, however impetuous, mistaken or ill-advised, was taken 
on no low oi- sordid or selfish grounds. On the contrar}', 
the logical assertion of a cardinal article of acce})ted polit- 
ical faith, it was made generously, chivalrously, in a spirit 
almost altruistic : foi-, from the outset, it was manifest Vir- 
ginia had nothing to gain in that conflict of which she 
nmst ])erforce be the battle-ground. True ! hei' leading 
men doubtless believed that the struggle would soon be 
brought to a triumphant close, — that Southern chivalry 
and fighting cpialities would win a ([uick and easy victory 
over a more materially minded, even if not craven. North- 
ern mob of fanatics and cobblers and pedlars, officered by 
preachers ; but, lK)wever thus deceived and misled at the 
outset, Virginia entered on the struggle others had initiated, 
for their ])rotection and in their behalf. She thrust herself 
between them and the tempest they had invoked. Tech- 
nically it may have been treasonal)lc : but her attitude was 
consistent, was bohl, was chivalrous: 

■ Hluides. I'liifeil Sfafes. vol. iii., ]). M4'.t. 



•26 



"An lionourable nmrderer if you will; 

For naught flid he in hate but all in honour." 

So nmc'h for Virginia : and now as to Robert E. Lh^^. 
More tlian once already, on occasions not unlike tins, have 
I quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes's remark in answer to 
the quei'V of an anxious mother as to when a child's 
education ought to begin, — '•' About 250 years before it 
is born:" and it is a fact, — somewhat necessitaria!! , 
doubtless, but still a fact, — that every man's life is largely 
moulded for him far back in the ages. We philosophic*^ 
freely over fate and free will, and one of the excellent 
commonplaces of our educational system is to instill into 
the minds of the children in our common-schools the idea 
that every man is the architect of liis own life. An ad- 
mirable theory to teach : but, happily foi- the race, true 
only to a very limited extent. Heredity is a tremendous 
limiting fact. Native force of character, — individuality, — 
doubtless has something to do with results ; but circum- 
stances, ancestry, environment have nuu'h more. One mau 
possibly in a hundred has in him the inherent force to 
make his conditions largely for himself ; but even h^, 
moves influenced at every step from cradle to grave by 
ante-natal and birth conditions. Take any man you please, 
— yourself, for instance ; now and again the changes of 
life give opportunity, and the individual is equal to thie 
occasion, — the roads forking, consciously or instinctively 
he makes his choice. Under such circumstances, he usu- 
ally supposes that he does so as a free agent. The 
world so assiunes, holding him responsible. He is noth- 
ing of the sort : or at best such only in a very limited 
degree. The other day one of our humorists took occa- 
sion to philosophize on this topic, delivering what might 
not inaptly l)e termed an occasional discourse api3ro})riatf^ 
to the 22iul of February. It was not only worth read- 
ing, but in liumor and sentiment it was somewhat sug- 
gestive of the melancholy .Jacques. '' We are made, brick 



27 

by brick, of influences, patiently built up around the 
frame work of our born dispositions. It is the sole pro- 
cess of construction : there is no other. Every man, 
woman and child is an influence. Washington's disposi- 
tion was born in him, he did not create it. It was the 
architect of his character ; his character was the artihiteet 
of his achievements. It had a native affinity for all in- 
fluences fine and great, and gave them hospitable welcome 
and permanent shelter. It had a native aversion for all 
influences mean and gross, and passed them on. It chose 
its ideals f oi' him : and out of its patiently gathered 
materials, it built and shaped his golden character. 

"■ And we give huii the credit." 

Three names of Virginians are impressed on the military 
records of our civil war — indelibly impressed. — Winfield 
Scott, George Henry Thomas and Kobert Edward Lee : 
The last most deeply. Of the thi-ee, the first two stood 
by the flag ; the third went with his State. Each, when 
the time came, acted conscientioush', impelled l)y the purest 
sense of loyalty, honor and obligation, taking that course 
which, nnder the circumstances and according to his lights. 
seemed to him right : and each doubtless thought he acted 
as a free agent. To a degree each was a free agent : 
to a much greater degree each was the child of anterior 
conditions, hereditary sequence, existing circumstances, — 
in a word of human environment, moral, material, intel- 
lectual. Scott or Thomas or Lee, being as he was, and 
things being as things were, could not decide otherwise 
than as he did decide. Considei- them in (U'der : Scott fiist : 

A Virginian by birth, earh' association and marriage, 
Scott, at the breaking-out of the V\\'\\ \\ ar, had not 
lived in his native State for fV>rty years. Not a jilanter, 
he held no broad acres and owned no slaves. Essentially 
a soldier, he was a citizen of the United Stat(^s : and. 
for twenty years, had been the (xeneral in command of 
its army. When, in April. 1861. Virginia passed its oi- 



28 



(linance of secession, he was well advanced in his seventy- 
fifth year, — an old man, he was no longer equal to 
active service. The course he would pursue was thus 
largely luai'ked out for him in advance ; a violent effort 
on his part could alone have forced him out of his trod- 
den path. When subjected to the test, what he did was 
infinitely credital)le to him, and the obligation the cause 
of the Union lay under to him during the critical period 
between December, 1860, and June, 1861, can scarcely 
be overstated ; but, none the less, in doing as he did, it 
cannot be denied he followed what was foi' him the line 
of least resistance. 

Of George Henry Thomas, no American, North or 
South, — above all, no American who served in the Civil 
War, — whether wearer of the blue or the gray, — can 
speak, save with infinite respect, — always with admiration, 
often with love. Than his, no i-ecord is clearer from stain. 
Thomas also was a Virginian. At the time of the break- 
ing-out of the Civil War, he held the lank of Majoi- in 
that regiment of cavalry of which Lee, nine years his 
senior in age, was Colonel. He never hesitated in his 
course. True to the flag from start to finish. Wil- 
liam T. Sherman, then General of the Army, in the 
order announcing the death of his friend and class-mate 
at the Academy, most pro^ierly said of liim : "■' The very 
impersonation of honesty, integrity and honor, he will 
stand to posterity as the heau ideal of the soldier and 
gentleman. " More tersely, Thomas stands for character 
personified. Washington himself not more so. And now 
having said this, let iis come again to the choice of 
Hercules, — the parting of those terrible ways of 1861. 

Like Scott and Lee, Thomas was a Virginian ; but, 
again, there are Virginians and Virginians. Thomas was 
not a Lee. When, in 1855, the second United States 
cavalry was organized. Jefferson Davis being Secretaiy of 
War, Captain Thomas, as he then was and in his thirty- 



29 

ninth yeai-. was ap})ointt'(l its junior Major. Between that 
time and April, 180 1. tifty-one officers ai-e said to have 
home commissions in that regiment, thirty-one of whom 
were from the South : and of those thirty-one, no less 
than twenty-four entered the Confederate sei-vice, twelve 
of whom, among them Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney 
Johnston and John B. Hood, became General officers. The 
name of the Virginian, (ieorge H. Thomas, stands first 
of the faithful seven : but. Union or Confederate, it is 
a record of great names, and fortunate is the people, great 
of necessity their destiny, w^hich in the hour of exigency, 
on the one side or the other, naturally develops from 
the roster of a single regiment men of the ability, the 
disinterestedness, the cajjacity and tlie ohai'aeter of Lee, 
Thomas, Johnson and Hood. It is a record which in- 
spires confidence as well as pride. 

And now of the two men — Thomas and Lee. Though 
born in Virginia, (ren. Thomas was not of a peculiarly 
Virginian descent. By ancestiy% he was, ou the father's 
side, Welsh ; P^reneh on ^ that of the mother. He was 
not of the old Virginia stock. Born in the southeastern 
])ortit)n of the State, near the North Carolina line, we are 
told that his family, dwelling on a "• goodly home prop- 
erty," was •' well to do '" and eminently •' respectable "" : 
but, it is added, there ''• were no cavaliers in the Thomas 
family, and not tlie remotest trace of the Pocahontas 
blood. " When the war l^roke out, in 18til, Thomas had 
been twenty-one years a commissioned officer ; and during 
those years he seems to have lived almost everywhere, 
except in Virginia. It luul been a life at military stations : 
his wife was from New York : his home was on the 
I ludson rather than on the Nottoway. In his native State 
h(; owned no pro))erty, land or chattels. Essentially a 
soldier, when the hour for choice came, the soldier dom- 
inated the Virginian. He stood l)y the flag. 

Not so Lee : for to Lee I now come. Of liim it mi^ht. 



80 



and in justice must, be said, that he was more than 
of the essence, he was of the very quintessence of Vir- 
ginia. In his case, the roots and fibres struck down and 
spread wide in the soil, making him of it a part. A son 
of the revolutionary "Light Horse Harry," he had married 
a Custis. His children represented all there was of 
descent, blood and tradition of the Old Dominion, made 
up as the Old Dominion was of tradition, blood and 
descent. The holder of broad patrimonial acres, by birth 
and marriage he was a slave-owner, and a slave-owner of 
the patriarchal type, holding " slavery as an institution, a 
moral and political e^dl." Every sentiment, every memory, 
every tie conceivable boiind him to Virginia ; and, when 
the choice was forced upon him, — had to be made, — sacri- 
ficing rank, career, the flag, he threw in his lot with Vir- 
ginia. He did so, with open eyes and weighing the 
eonsequences. He at least indulged in no self-deception — 
wandered away from the path in no cloud of political 
metaphysics, — nourished no delusion as to an early and easy 
triumph. " Secession," as he wrote to his son, " is nothing 
])ut revolution. The framers of our Constitution never ex- 
hausted so nuich labor, wisdom and forbearance in its for- 
mation, and surrounded it with so many guards and 
securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member 
of the confederacy at will. It is idle to talk of secession." 
I^ut he also believed that his permanent allegiance was 
ilue to Virginia ; that her secession, though revolutionary, 
l>ound all Virginians and ended their connection with and 
duties to the national government. Thereafter, to remain 
in the United States army would be treason to Virginia. 
So, two days after Virginia passed its ordinance, he, being 
then at Arlington, resigned his commission, at the same 
time writing to his sister, the wife of a Union officer, — 
•• We are now in a state of war which will yield to 
nothing. The whole South is in a state of revolution, into 
i-ihich Virginia, after a long struggle, has been drawn ; 



31 

and, though I recognize no necessity for this state of 
things, and would have foreborne and pleaded to the end 
for redress of grievances, real or su})posed, yet in my own 
person I had to meet the question whether I should take 
part against my native State. AVith all my devotion to 
the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an 
American citizen, I have not been able to make up my 
mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, 
my home. I have, therefore, resigned my commission in 
the army ; and, save in defense of my native State, I 
(jope I may never be called on to draw my sword." Two 
days before he had been unreservedly tendered, on behalf 
of President Lincoln, the command of the Union army 
then immediately to be put in the field in front of Wash- 
Jngton, — the command shortly afterwards held by General 
McDowell. 

So thought and spoke and wrote and acted Robert E. 
Lee in April, 1861. He has, for the decision thus 
reached, •'been termed by some a traitor, a deserter, almost 
an apostate, and consigned to the " avenging pen of His- 
tory." I cannot so see it ; I am confident posterity ^^^ll 
ruot so see it. The name and conditions being changed, 
those who uttered the words of censure, invoking -'• the 
uvenging pen," did not so see it — have not seen it so. Let 
us appeal to the record. What otherwise did George 
Washington do under circumstances not dissimilar? What 
would he have done under circumstances wholly similar? 
I^ike Lee, Washington was a soldier : like Lee, he was a 
Virginian before he was a soldier. He had served under King 
"xeorge's flag: he had sworn allegiance to King George; 
his ambition had been to hold the royal connnission. 
Presently Virginia seceded from the British empire, — re- 
nounced its allegiance. What did Washington do ? Ho 
threw in his lot with his native province. Do you hold 
isim then to have been a traitor, — to have been false to 
ms colors ? Such is not vour verdict : such has not been 



32 

the verdict of liistoiy. He acted conscientiou.sly. loyally, 
as a son of Virginia, and according- to liis lights. Will 
you say that Lee did otherwise ? 

Bnt men love to differentiate : and of drawing of distinc- 
tions there is no end. The cases were different, it will l)e 
argued : at the time Virginia renoimced its allegiance 
Washington did not hold the King's commission, indeed 
he never held it. As a soldier he was a provincial always. 

— he bore a Virginian commission, True I Let the dis- 
tinction he conceded ; then assume that the darling wish 
of his younger heart had hcen granted to him, and that he 
had received the King's commission, and held it in 1775 ; — 
what course would he then have pursued V What course 
would you wish him to have pursued? Do you not wish. 

— do you not know, — that, circumstanced as then he would 
have been, he would have done exactly as Robert E. Lee 
did eighty-six years later. He would tii-st have resigned 
his commission : and then arrayed himself on the side of 
Virginia. Would you have had him do otherwise ? And 
so it goes in this world. In sucla cases the usual form 
of speech is : '•^ (^h I that is different I Another case alto- 
gether I '" Yes, it is different : it is another case. For 
it makes all the difference in the woi-ld with a man \\'ho 
argues thus, whether it is his ox that is gored or that of 
the other man I 

And here in preparing this address I must fairly 
acknowledge having encountered an ()l)stacde in my path 
also. When considering the courwe of another, it is always 
well to ask one's self the (juestion — What woidd you 
yourself have done if similarly placed ? Warmed by my 
argiunent, and the great precedents of Lee and of Wash- 
ington, 1 did so here. 1 and mine were and are at least 
as much identified with Massachusetts as was Lee and 
his with Virginia : — traditionally, historically, by blood 
and memory and name, we with the Puritan Common- 
wealth as they with the Old Dominion. What, I asked 



33 

myself, would I have done had Massachusetts at any time 
arrayed itself against the eommon countiy, though with- 
out my sympathy and assent, even as Virginia arrayed it- 
self against the l^nion without the sympathy and assent 
of Lee in 1861? The (|uestion gave me i)ause. And 
then I must confess to a sense of the humor of the 
situation coming over me, as ] found it answered to my 
hand. The case had already arisen : the answer had heen 
given ; nor had it lieeu given in any uncertain tone. The 
dark and disloyal days of the earlier years of the cent- 
ury just ended rose in memory, — the days of the Em- 
bargo, the Loopard and the Chexajicake, and of the 
Hartford Convention. The course then taken by those in 
political contiol in Massachusetts is recorded in history. 
It verged dangerously close on that pursued by Virginia 
and the South fifty years later : and the (juarrel then 
was foreign ; it was no domestic l)roil. One of my name, 
from whom I claim descent, was then prominent in pub- 
lic life.-' He accordingly was called upon to make the 
choice of Hercules, as later was Lee. He made liis 
choice : and it was for the (common country as against 
his section. The result is matter of history. Because he 
was a LTnion man and held country higher than State or 
})arty, John (^uincy Adams was in 1808 driven from 
office, a successor to him in the United States Senate 
was elected long before the expiration of his term, and 
he himself was forced into what at the time was regarded 
as an honorable exile. Nor was the line of conduct then 
by him pursued, — that of unswerving loyalty to the Union. 
— ever forgotten or wholly forgiven. He liad })ut country 
above party ; and party leaders have long memories. Even 
so broad-minded and clear-thinking a man as Theodore 
Parker, when delivering a eulogy upon ,1. (^. Adams, 
forty years later, thus ex])ressed himself of this act of 
supreme self-sacrifice and loyalty to Nation ratliei- than 
to State : — " To mv mind, that is the woi'st act of his 



u 

public life ; I cannot justify it. I wish I could find some 
reasonable excuse for it. '*** However, it must be con- 
fessed that this, though not the only instance of injustice, 
is the only case of servile compliance with the Executive to 
be found in the whole life of the man. It was a grievous 
fault but grievously did he answer it ; and if a long life of 
unfaltering resistance to every attempt at the assumption 
of power is fit atonement, then the expiation was abun- 
dantly made." * 

What more, or worse, on the other side, could be said 
of Lee ? 

Perhaps I shoidd enter some plea in excuse of this 
diversion : but, for me, it may explain itself, or go un- 
explained. Confronted with the question what would I 
have done in 1861 had positions been reversed and Mas- 
sachusetts taken the course then taken by Virginia, I 
found the answer already recorded I would have gone 
with the Union, and against Massachusetts. None the 
less, I hold Massachusetts estopped in the case of Lee. 
'^ Let /the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung"; 
but,..^I submit, however it might be with me or mine, 
it "does not lie in the mouths of the descendants of the 
New England Federalists of the first two decennials of 
the nineteenth century to invoke '' the avenging pen of 
History" to record an adverse verdict in the case of any 
son of Virginia who threw in his lot with his State in 
1861^ 
^^I'hus much for the choice of Hercules. Pass on to 
what followed. Of Robert E. Lee as the commander of 
the Army of Northern Virginia, — at once the buckler and 
the sword of the Confederacy, — I shall say few words. I 
was in the ranks of those opposed to him. For years I 
was face to face with some fragment of the Army of 
Northern Virginia, and intent to do it harm ; and during 
those years there was not a day when I would not have 
* Wvrks (Loudon, I8O0) vol. iv., pp. 1-34-156. 



35 

drawn a deep breath of relief and satisfaction at hearing 
of the death of Lee, even as I did draw it at hearing of 
the death of Jackson. But now, looking back through a I 
perspective of nearly forty years, I glory in it, and in / 
them as foes, — they were worthy of the best of steel. / 
I am proud now to say that I was their countryniaif 
Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the course 
of Lee when his choice was made, of Lee as a foe and the , 
commander of an army, but one opinion can be entertained. 
Every inch a soldier, he was as an opponent not less 
generous and humane than formidable, a type of highest 
martial character ; — cavitious, magnanimous and bold, a 
very thunderbolt in war, he was self-contained in \nctory, 
but greatest in defeat. To that escutcheon attaches no 
stain. 

I now come to what I have always regarded, — shall 
ever regard, — as the most creditable episode in all Amer- 
ican history, — an episode without a blemish, — imposing, 
dignified, simple, heroic. I refer to Appomattox. Two men 
met that day, representative of American civilization, the 
whole world looking on. The two were Grant and Lee, 
— types each. Both rose, and rose unconsciously, to the 
full height of the occasion, — and than that occasion there 
has been none greater. About it, and them, there was no 
theatrical display, no self-consciousness, no effort at eff'ect. 
A great crisis was to be met ; and they met that crisis as 
great countrymen should. Consider the possibilities ; think 
for a moment of what that day might have been ; — you 
will then see cause to thank God for much. 

That month of April saw the close of exactly four 
years of persistent strife, — a strife which the whole civil- 
ized world had been watching intently. Democracy, — the 
capacity of man in his present stage of development for 
self-government, — was believed to be on trial. The \vish 
the father to the thought, the prophets of evil had been 
liberal in prediction. It so chances that my attention 



36 

has been .specially drav/n to the European xitteiances of 
that time : and, read in the clear light of subsequent 
history, I use words of moderation when I say that they 
ai'e now both inconceivable and ludicrous. Staid journals, 
grave public men, seemed to take what was little less 
than pleasure in pronouncing that impossible of occurrence 
which was destined soon to occur, and in ctommitting 
themselves to readings of the book of fate in exact op- 
position to what the muse of history was wetting the pen to 
record. Volumes of unmerited abuse and false vaticination, 

— and volumes hardly less amusing now than instructive, 

— could be garnered from the columns of the London 
Times, — volumes in which the spirit of contemptu- 
ous and patr(mizing dislike sought expression in the pro- 
foundest ignorance of facts, set down in bitterest words. 
Not only were republican institutions and mans capacity 
for self-government on trial, but the severest of sentences 
was imposed in advance of the adverse verdict, assumed 
to be inevitable. Then, suddenly, came the dramatic cli- 
max at Appomattox, — dramatic, I say. not theatrical, — 
severe in its simple, sober, matter-of-fact nuijesty. The 
world, I again assert, has seen nothing like it ; and the 
world, instinctively, was conscious of the fact. I like to 
dwell on the familial- circumstances of the day ; on its 
momentous outcome : on its far-reaching lesults. It affords 
one of the greatest educational object-lessons to be found 
in history ; and the actors were worthy of the theatre, 
the auditory and the play. 

A mighty tragedy was drawing to a close. The breath- 
less world was the audience. It was a bright balmy April 
Sunday in a quiet Virginia landscape, with two veteran 
armies confronting each othei- : one. game to the death, 
completely in the grasp of the othei'. The future was at 
stake. What might ensue? What might not ensue? 
Woidd the strife end then and there? Would it die in a 
death grapple, ojily to rea})pear in that chronic foi-m of a 



37 

vanquished Imt iiuloinitahle people writhing and struggling 
in the grasp of an insatiate but only nominal victor? 
Such a struggle as all European authorities united in con- 
fidently predicting ? 

Tlie answer depended on two men, — the captains of the 
contending forces. Grant that day had Lee at his mercy. 
He had but to close his hand, and his opponent was 
crushed. Think what then might have resulted iuul those 
two men been other than they were, — had the one been 
stern and aggressive, the other sullen and unyielding. 
Most fortunately for us, they were what and who they 
were — Grant and Lee. More, I need not, could not 
say : — this only let me add, — a people has good right to be 
proud of the past and self-contident of its future when on 
so great an occasion it naturally develops at the front men 
who meet each other as those two met each other then. 
Of the two, I know not to which to award the palm. In- 
stinctively, unconsciously, they vied not unsuccessfully each 
with thy other, in dignity, nuignanimity, simplicity. 

•' Si fVactiis illabutur urbi? 
IiiipaviiUini t'erieiit niiua-." 

With a home no longer his, Lee then slieathed his 
sword. With the silent dignity of his subsequent life, 
after he thus accepted defeat, all are familiar. He left 
behind him no querulous memoirs, no exculpatory vindi- 
cation, no controversial utterances. For him, history might 
explain itself, — posterity formulate its own verdict. Sur- 
viving Api)omattox but a little more than five years, those 
years were not unmarked by incidents very gratifying to 
American recollection ; for we Americans do, I think, 
above all things love magnanimity, and appx-eciate action 
at once fearless and generous. We all remember how by 
the grim mockery of fate, — as if to test to the uttermost 
American capacity for self-government, — Abrahaiu Lincoln 



.38 

was snatched away at the moment of crisis from the helm 
of state, and Andrew »Johnson substituted for him. I 
think it no doubtful anticipation of historical judgment 
to say that a more unfortunate selection could not well 
have been made. In no single respect, it is safe to say, 
was Andrew Johnson adapted for the peculiar duties which 
Booth's pistol imposed upon him. One of Johnson's most 
unhappy, most ill-considered convictions was that our Civil 
War was a conventional old-time rebellion ; — that rebellion 
was treason : — that treason was a crime ; and that a crime 
was something for which punishment should in due cour.se 
of law be meted oiit. He, therefore, wanted, or thought 
he wanted, to liave the scenes of England's Convention 
Parliament and the Restoration of 1660 re-enacted here, 
as a fitting sequel of our great conflict. Most fortiuiately, 
the American people then gave evidence to Europe of a 
capacity for self-restraint and self-government not traceable 
to English parentage, or precedents. No Cromwell's head 
grinned from our Westminster Hall: no convicted traitor 
swung in chains : no shambles dripped in blood. None 
the less Andrew Johnson called for '' indictments," and one 
day demanded that of Lee. Then outspoke Grant, — Gen- 
eral of the Army. Lee, he declared, was his prisoner. 
He had surrendered to him, and in reliance on his woi'd. 
He had leceived assurance that so long as he quietly 
remained at his home, and did not offend against the law, 
he should not be molested. He had done so, and, so long 
as Grant held his commission, molested he should not be. 
Needless, as pleasant, to say what Grant then grindy in- 
timated did not take place. Lee was not molested; nor 
did the Geneial of the Army indignantly fling his com- 
mission at an accidental Presidents feet. That, if necessary, 
he would have done so, I take to be quite indubitable. 
Of Lee's subsequent life, as head of Washington College, 
I have but one anecdote to offer. I believe it to be typical. 
A few months ago I received a letter from a retired army 



39 

officer of hi<i-]i character from which T extract the following : — 
Lee was essentially a Virginian. His sword was Virginia's, 
and I fancy the State had higher claims upon him than 
had the Confederacy, just as he su])posed it had than the 
United States. But, after the surrender, he stood firndy 
and unreservedly in favor of loyalty to the Nation. A 
gentleman told me this anecdote. As a l)oy he ran away 
from his Kentucky home, and served the last two years 
in the rebel ranks. After the war he resumed his studies 
imder Lees presidency : and on one occasion, delivered as 
a college exercise an oration with eulogistic reference to 
the " Lost Cause," and what it meant. Later, General, i 
then President Lee sent for the student, and, after praising I 
his composition and delivery, seriously warned him against \ 
holding or advancing such views, impressing strongly u]>on 
him the unity of the Nation, and urging him to devote 
himself loyally to maintain the integrity and the honor 
of the United States. The kindly paternal advice thus 
given was, 1 imagine, typical of his whole jxjsf hcllmn 
life." Let this one anecdote suffice. Here was magna- 
nimity, philosoph3\ true patriotism : the })ui'e American 
spirit. Accepting the situation loyally and in a manlv. 
silent way, — without self-consciousness or mental reserva- 
tion, he sought by precept and yet more by a great ex- 
ample, to build up the shattered community of which lie 
was the most observed representative in accordance with 
the new conditions imposed by fate, and through consti- 
tutional ai'tion. Talk of traitors and of treason I The man 
who pursued that course and instilled that spirit had not, 
could not have had, in his whole being one drop of 
traitors blood or conceived a treacherous thought. His 
lights mav have been wronji:, — accordin<i' to our ideas then 
and now they were wrong, — but they were his lights, and 
in acting in full accordance with them he was right. 

But, to those thus speaking, it is since sometimes re- 
})lied. — " Even tolerance may be carried too far. and is 



^0 

apt theu to verge (lungerovisly on what may be better 
described as moral indiffereuee. It then, humanly speaking, 
assumes that there is no real ri<iht or real wrona" in eol- 
lective human action. But put yourself in hi-s place, and 
to those of this way of thinking Philip II. and William of 
Orange. — Charles I. and Cromwell, — are nuich the same; 

— the one is as good as the other, provided oidy he acted 
according to his lights. This will not do. Some moral 
test must be applied, — some standard of right and wrong. 

•'It is by the recognition and acceptance of these that 
men prominent in history must be measured, and ap- 
proved or condemned. To call it our Civil War is but 
a mere euphemistic way of referring to what was in fact 
a slave-holders* rebellion, conceived and put in action for 
no end but to perpetuate and extend a system of human 
servitude, a system the relic of barbarism, an insult to 
advancing humanity. To the furtherance of this rebellion 
Lee lent himself. Right is right, and treason is treason, 

— and, as that which is morally wrong cannot be right, so 
treason cannot be other than a crime. Why then be- 
cause of sentiment or sympathy or moral indifference seek 
to confound the two? Charles Stuart and Cromwell 
could not both have been right. If Thomas was right, Lee 
was wrong. " 

To this I would reply, that we, who take another view, 
neither confound, nor seek to confound, right with wrou"-, 
or treason with loyalty. We accept the verdict of time ; 
but, in so doing, we insist that the verdict shall be in 
accordance with the facts, and that each individual shall 
be judged on his own merits, and not stand acquitted or 
condemned in block. In this respect time works wonders, 
leaving few conclusions wholly unchallenged. Take, for 
instance, one of the final contentions of Charles Sumner, 
that, following old world precedents, fomided, as he claimed 
in reason and patriotism, the names of battles of the 
war of the rebellion should be removed from the resi- 



41 

mental colors of the national army, and from the army 
lejfister. He })ut it on the ground that, from the re- 
pnldies of antiquity down to our days, no civilized nation 
ever thought it wise or j)atriotie to preserve in conspie- 
uous and dura))le foi-ni the mementoes of victories won 
over fellow citizens in civil war. As the sympathizing 
orator said at the time of Sunmer's death — " Should the 
son of South Carolina, when at some future day de- 
fending the Republic against some foreign foe, be re- 
minded by an inscription on the colors floating over him, 
that under this flag the gun was fired that killed his 
father at Gettysburg? "" This assuredly has a plausible 
sound. " His father ; "" yes, perhaps. Though even in the 
immediately succeeding generation something might well be 
said on the other side. Presumably, in such case, the 
father was a brave, an honest and a loyal man, — con- 
tending for what he believed to be right : — for it, lay- 
ing down his life. Gettysburg is a name and a memory 
of which none there need ever feel ashamed. As in most 
battles, there was a victoi- and a vanquished : but on that 
day the vanquished, as well as the victor, fought a stout 
fight. If, in all recorded warfare there is a deed of arms 
the name and memory of which the descendants of those 
who i)articipated thei-ein should not wish to see obliterated 
from any record, be it historian's page or battle-flag, it 
was the advance of Pickett's Virginian division across 
that wide valley of death in front of Cemetery Ridge. 
1 know in all recjorded warfare of no finer, no more 
sustained and deadly feat of arms. 1 have stood on 
either battle field, and, in scope and detail, carefidly 
compared the two : and, challenging denial, I affirm that 
the nuu-h vaunted charge of Napoleon's guard at Water- 
loo, in fortitude, discipline and deadly energy will not 
beai- comparison with that other. It was boy's work be- 
side it. There, brave men did all that the bravest men 
cvnld do. Whv then shouhl the son of one of those 



42 



who fell coming up the long ascent, or over our works 
and in among our guns, feel a sense of wrong becaust^ 
" Gettysburg " is inscribed on the flag of the battery a 
gun of which he now may serve ? On the contrary, I 
should suppose he would there see that name only. 

But. supposing it otherwise in the case of the son. — 
the wound being in such case yet fresh and green, — 
how would it be when a sufficient time has elapsed tn 
afford the needed perspective ? Let iis suppose a grand- 
son six venerations removed. What Enoiishman, be he 
Cavalier or Roundhead by descent, — did his ancester 
charge with Rupert or Cromwell, — did he fall while 
riding with levelled point in the gi-ini wall of advancing 
Ironsides, or go hopelessly down in death l>eneath their 
thundering hoofs, — what descendant of any Englishman 
who there met his end. but with pride would read the 
name of Nasliy on his regimental flag? What Frendunau 
would consent to the erasure of Ivry or Moncontoiu- ".' 
Thus in all these matters. Time is the great nuigiciaii. 
It both mellows and transforms. The Englishman of to- 
day does not apply to Cromwell the standard of loyalty 
or treason, of right and wrong, applied after the Restoi'ation : 
nor again does the twentieth century confirm the nine- 
teenth's verdicts. Even slavery we may come to regard 
as a phase, pardoiud)le as passing, ifi the evolution of a 
race. 

' I hold it will certainly l)e so with our CHvil War. 
The year 1965 will look upon its causes, its incidents 
and its men with different eyes from those with which 
we see them now. — eyes wholly different from those with 
which we saw forty years ago. They, — foi* we by that 
time will have rejoined the generation to which we be- 
longed, — - will recognize the somewhat essential fact, in- 
dubitably true, that all the honest con^dction, all the 
loyalty, all the patriotic devotion and self-sacrifice were not 
then, any more than all the courage, on the victor's side. 



48 



True ! the moral right, the spirit of nationality, tin? 
sacred caiise of humanity even, were on our side : l>ut, 
among those opposed, and who in the end went down, 
were men not less sincere, not less devoted, not less tiuly 
patriotic according to their lights than he who among us 
was first in all those qualities. Men of whom it was and 
is a cause of pride and confidence to say — '' They too 
were countrymen I '" 

Typical of those ' men, — most typical, — was Lee. He 
represented, individualized, all that was highest and best 
in the Southern mind and the Confederate cause, — the 
loyalty to State, the keen sense of honoi' and personal 
obligation, the slightly archaic, the almost patriarchal, love 
of dependent, family and home. As I have moie than 
once said, he was a Virginian of the Virginians. He 
represents a type which is gone, — hardly less extinct than 
that of the great English nobleman of the feudal times, 
or the ideal head of the Scotch clan of a later period : 
but just so long as men admire courage, devotion, patriot- 
ism, the high sense of duty and personal honor, — all in 
a word which go to make up what we know as Charac- 
ter, — just so long will that type of man be held in 
affectionate, reverential memory. They have in them all 
the elements of the heroic. As Carlyle wrote more than 
half a century ago, so now — '' Whom do you wish to 
resemble ? Him you set on a high column. Who is to 
have a statue ? means. Whom shall we consecrate and set 
apart as one of our sacred men ? Sacred : that all men 
may see him. V)e reminded of him, and. by new example 
added to old j)ei'petual precept, be taught what is real 
worth in man. Show me the man you honor : I 
know by that symptom, better than by any othei-. what 
kind of man you yourself are. For you show me there 
what your ideal of manhood is : what kind of man you 
long inexpressibly to be, and would thank the gods, witli 
your whole soul, for being if you could." 



•44 

Tt is all a question of time : and the time is, probably, 
not quite yet. The wounds of the gi-eat War are not 
altogether healed, its personal memories are still fresh, its 
passions not wholly allayed. It would, indeed, be a 
wonder if they were. But, 1 am as convinced as an un- 
illumined man can be of anything future, that when such 
time does come, a justice not done now, will be done to 
those descendants of Washington, of Jefferson, of Rutledge, 
and of Lee who stood opposed to us in a succeeding 
generation. That the national spirit is now supreme and 
the nation cemented, I hold to be unquestionable. That 
property in man has vanished from the civilized world, is 
due to our Civil War. The two are worth the great 
price then paid for them. But wrong as he may have 
been., and as he was proved by events in these respects, the 
Confederate had many great and generous qualities ; he also 
was brave, chivalrous, self-sacrificing, sincere and patriotic. 
So I look forward with confidence to the time when 
they too will be i'e})resented in our national pantheon. 
Then the query will be answered here, as the query in 
regard to Cromwell's statue put sixty years ago has re- 
cently been answered in England. The bronze effigy of 
Kobert E. Lee. mounted on his chai"ger and with the in- 
signia of his Confederate rank, will from its pedestal in 
the nation's capitol look across the Potomac at his old 
home at Arlington, even as that of Cromwell dominates 
the yard of Westminster upon which his skiUl once looked 
down. When that time comes, Lee's monument will be 
educational. — it will typify the historical appreciation of all 
that goes t<i make up the loftiest ty]:)e of character, mili- 
tary and civi(% exemplified in an opponent, once dreaded 
but ever respected : and, above all, it will symbolize and 
connnemorate that loyal acceptance of the consequences of 
defeat, and the patient upbuilding of a people under new 
conditions by constitutional means, which 1 hold to be the 
greatest educational lesson America has yet taught to a 
once skeptical but now silenced world. 



LBAp'lO 



"Shall Cromwell Have a Statue?" 



ORATION 

BY 

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, 

BEFORE 

THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY 

OF 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, 

TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1902. 



